Transcripts For KCSM Democracy Now 20160905

Then the making of donald trump. We will speak to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has covered trump, for decades. Trump talks as if the president s a dictator. When he ran casinos, he didnt know the games. He didnt know the odds. He didnt know how to handle customers. All he knew how to do was take money out of the organization, which weakened it, and thats why his casinos were among the first to fold. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Today, a holiday special looking at the president ial election. Mr. Trump when mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. Theyre bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They are rapists. Mrs. Clinton i have said repeatedly, i want those emails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than i do. Trump were going to have a wall. Were going to have a wall. Amy today a fiery debate between the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist chris hedges and former labor secretary robert reich. Chris hedges is the author of many books, including wages of rebellion the moral imperative of revolt. He has endorsed the green partys dr. Jill stein for president. Robert reich is backing Hillary Clinton after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Reich served in bill clintons cabinet as labor secretary from 1993 to 1997. He now teaches at uc berkeley. His most recent book is saving capitalism for the many, not the few. Juan gonzalez and i spoke to chris hedges and robert reich during the Democratic National convention in philadelphia. We began with robert reich. This is a very agonizing time for Bernie Sanders. I, with a great deal of reluctance initially, because ive known Hillary Clinton for 50 years 50 years endorsed Bernie Sanders and worked my heart out for him, as many, many people did. And so at this particular juncture, you know, theres a great deal of sadness and a great deal of feeling of regret. But having worked so long and so many years for basically the progressive ideals that Bernie Sanders stands for, i can tell you that the movement is going to continue. In fact, its going to grow. And right now, at this particular point in time, i just dont see any alternative but to support hillary. I know hillary. I know her faults, i know her strengths. I think she will make a great president. I supported Bernie Sanders because i thought he would make a better president for the system we need. But nonetheless, Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee. I support her. And i support her not only because she will be a good president , if not a great president , but also, frankly, because i am tremendously worried about the alternative. And the alternative, really, as a practical matter, is somebody who is a megalomaniac and a bigot, somebody who will set back ressive movement is somebody who is a mdecades, if not more. Ot, amy chris hedges . Well, reducing the election to personalities is kind of infantile at this point. The fact is, we live in a system that Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism. Its a system where Corporate Power has seized all of the levers of control. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs or exxonmobil or raytheon. Weve lost our privacy. Weve seen, under obama, an assault against Civil Liberties that has outstripped what george w. Bush carried out. Weve seen the executive branch misinterpret the 2001 authorization to use military force act as giving itself the right to assassinate american citizens, including children. I speak of anwar alawlakis 16yearold son. We have bailed out the banks, pushed through programs of austerity. This has been a bipartisan effort because theyve both been captured by Corporate Power. We have undergone what John Ralston Saul correctly calls a corporate coup detat in slow motion, and its over. I just came back from poland, which is a kind of case study of how neoliberal poison destroys a society and creates figures like trump. Poland has gone, i think we can argue, into a neofascism. First, it dislocated the working class, deindustrialized the country. Then in the name of austerity, it destroyed public institutions, education, public broadcasting. And then it poisoned the political system. And we are now watching, in poland, them create a 30,000 to 40,000 armed militia. You know, they have an army. The parliament, nothing works. And i think that this political system in the United States has seized up in exactly the same form. So is trump a repugnant personality . Yes. Although, i would argue that in terms of megalomania and narcissism, Hillary Clinton is not far behind. But the point is, weve got to break away from which is exactly the narrative they want us to focus on. Weve got to break away from political personalities and understand and examine and critique the structures of power. And, in fact, the Democratic Party, especially beginning under bill clinton, has carried water for corporate entities as assiduously as the Republican Party. This is something that ralph nader understood long before the rest of us, and stepped out very courageously in 2000. And i think we will look back on that period and find ralph to be an amazingly prophetic figure. Nobody understands Corporate Power better than ralph. And i think now people have caught up with ralph. And this is, of course, why i support dr. Stein and the green party. We have to remember that 10 years ago, syriza, which controls the greek government, was polling at exactly the same spot that the green party is polling now about 4 . Weve got to break out of this idea that we can create systematic change within a particular election cycle. Weve got to be willing to step out into the political wilderness, perhaps, for a decade. But on the issues of Climate Change, on the issue of the destruction of Civil Liberties, including our right to privacy and i speak as a former investigative journalist, which doesnt exist anymore because of wholesale government surveillance we have no ability, except for hackers. I mean, this whole debate over the wikileaks is insane. Did russia . Ive printed classified material that was given to me by the mossad. But i never exposed that mossad gave it to me. Is what was published true or untrue . And the fact is, you know, in those long emails you should read them. Theyre appalling, including calling dr. Cornel west trash. It is the whole it exposes the way the system was rigged, within im talking about the Democratic Party the denial of independents, the superdelegates, the stealing of the caucus in nevada, the huge amounts of corporate money and super pacs that flowed into the clinton campaign. The fact is, clinton has a track record, and its one that has abandoned children. I mean, she and her husband destroyed welfare as we know it, and 70 of the original recipients were children. This debate over i dont like trump, but trump is not the phenomenon. Trump is responding to a phenomenon created by neoliberalism. And we may get rid of trump, but we will get something even more vile, maybe ted cruz. Amy robert reich, i remember you, on democracy now , talking about your time as labor secretary when president clinton signed off on welfare reform, and you described walking the streets of washington, d. C. , wondering where the protests were, that you had vigorously objected. And it was also an issue, a bill that Hillary Clinton had supported. So can you respond to chris hedges on these three points, including, so you take a walk in the political wilderness for a little while . Well, amy, its not just taking a walk in the political wilderness. If donald trump becomes president , if thats what youre referring to, i think it is there are irrevocable negative changes that will happen in the United States, including appointments to the supreme court, that will not be just political wilderness, that will actually change and worsen the structure of this country. I couldnt agree with chris hedges more about his critique, overall, of neoliberalism and a lot of the structural problems that we face in our political economy today. Ive written about them. But ive done more than write about them. Ive actually been in the center of power, and i have been doing everything i can as an individual and also as a mobilizer and organizer of others to try to change what we now have. I think that voting for donald trump or equating Hillary Clinton with donald trump is insane. Donald trump is certainly a product of a kind of system and a systematic undermining that has occurred in the United States for years with regard to inequality of income and wealth and political power. But we dont fight that by simply saying, all right, lets just have donald trump and hope that the system improves itself and hope that things are so bad that actually people rise up in armed resistance. Thats insane. Thats crazy. What we have to do is be weve got to be very, very strategic as progressives. Weve got to look at the long term. Weve got to understand that Bernie Sanders brought us much further along than we were before the sanders campaign. We owe a lot to Bernie Sanders, his courage, his integrity, his power, the fact that most people under 30 voted for Bernie Sanders. In fact, if you look at the people who voted for Bernie Sanders under 30, that was more people than voted for donald trump and Hillary Clinton together under the age of 30. We are building a Progressive Movement in this country. But over the next four years, i dont want donald trump to irretrievably make it difficult, if not impossible, for us to move forward with that Progressive Movement. Now, i understand Hillary Clinton is not perfect. Ive known her, as i said before, for 50 years. I met her when she was 19 years old. I know her strengths, and i know, pretty well, her weaknesses. She is not perfect. And as chris says, you know, she is also very much a product of many of the problems structurally in this country right now. We fight those structural problems, yes. Hand in hand, chris, with you, shoulder to shoulder im very short, maybe its my shoulder, and its your rib cage but it doesnt matter, we continue to fight. I will continue to fight. Many people who are watching and listening will continue to fight. We must continue to mobilize. I hope Bernie Sanders does what he implied he would do last night that is, carry the movement forward, lend his name, his energy, his email list. This is not the end of anything. But we have got to be, at the same time, very practical about what were doing and very strategic about what were doing. This is not just a matter of making statements. Its a matter of actually working with and through, and changing the structure of power in this country. Juan chris, id like to ask you youve written that liberals are tolerated by the capitalist elites because they do not question the virtues of corporate capitalism, only its excesses, and call for tepid and ineffectual reforms. Could that have also have been said of fdr in the 1930s . Because you were one of the folks who did not back Bernie Sanders from the beginning. I did not back Bernie Sanders because and Kshama Sawant and i had had a discussion with him before because he said that he would work within the democratic structures and support the nominee. And i think we have now watched Bernie Sanders walk away from his political moment. You know, he i think he will come to deeply regret what he has done. He has betrayed these people who believed in this political revolution. We heard this same kind of rhetoric, by the way, in 2008 around obama. A Political Campaign raises consciousness, but its not a movement. And what we are seeing now is furious spin i listened to ben jealous just do it from the selfidentified liberal class. And they are tolerated within a capitalist system, because in a moment like this, they are used to speak to people to get them to betray their own interests in the name of fear. And i admire robert and have read much of his stuff and like his stuff. But if you listen to what hes been saying, the message is the same message of the trump campaign, and that his fear. And that is all the democrats have to offer now and all the republicans have to offer now. And the fact is, from Climate Change alone, we have no time left. I have four children. The future of my children, by the day, is bei destroyed because of the fact that the fossil fuel industry, along with the Animal Agriculture industry, which is also as important in terms of Climate Change, are destroying the ecosystem on which we depend for life. And Neither Party has any intention to do anything about it. Amy what should Bernie Sanders ha done . Bernie sanders should have walked out and run as an independent. And defied the Democratic Party. Amy take up the invitation of dr. Jill stein and run on a ticket with she offered to let him run on the top of the ticket. Thats what he should have done. And the fact is, you know, lets not forget that bernie has a very checkered past. He campaigned for clinton in 1992. He campaigned for clinton again in 1996, after nafta the greatest betrayal of the working class in this country since the tafthartley act of 1948 after the destruction of welfare, after the omnibus crime bill that ploded the prison population, and, you know, we now have i mean, its just a monstrosity what weve done. 350,000 to 400,000 people locked in cages in this country are severely mentally ill. Half of them never committed a violent crime. Thats all bill clinton. And yet he went out and campaigned. In 2004, he called on nader not to run, to step down, so he could support a war candidate like john kerry. And im listening to jealous before talk about the iraq war. 60 of the Democratic Senators voted for the war, including Hillary Clinton. The idea that somehow democrats dont push us into war defies american history. Amy robert reich . Well, all i can say is that at this particular point in time i mean, again, many of the things that chris hedges is saying, i completely agree with. The real question here is, what do we do right now . And what do we do to mobilize and organize a lot of people out there who right now are not mobilized and organized . And how do we keep the Energy Building . I disagree with chris with regard to Bernie Sanders. I think Bernie Sanders has been a great and is a great leader right now of the progressive cause. What i think we ought to do is develop a third Party Outside the democratic and republican parties, maybe the green party, so that in the year 2020, four years from now, we have another candidate it may be Bernie Sanders. I think hes probably going to be too old by then but we have a candidate that holds the democrats accountable, that provides a vehicle for a lot of the energy of the Bernie Sanders movement to continue to develop, that fields new candidates at the senate, in congress, at the state level that actually holds democrats feet to the fire and republicans feet to the fire, that develops an agenda of getting big money out of politics and severing the link between extraordinarily concentrated wealth and political power in this country. Thats what we ought to be doing. Now, we can but in order to do that, we cannot have and, you know, i think that hillary will be a good president , if not a great president. This is not just trucking in fear, chris. But i do fear donald trump. I fear the polls that i saw yesterday. Now, polls, again, this early in a Campaign Still were still months away from the election, but they are indicative. They show donald trump doing exceedingly well, beating Hillary Clinton. And right now, given our twoparty system, given our winnertakeall system with regard to the electoral college, its just too much of a risk to go and to say, well, im going to vote im not going to vote for the lesser of two evils, im going to vote exactly what i want to do. Well, anybody can do that, obviously. This is a free country. You vote what you you vote your conscience. You have to do that. Im just saying that your conscience needs to be aware that if you do not support Hillary Clinton, you are increasing the odds of a true, clear and present danger to the United States, a menace to the United States. And youre increasing the possibility that there will not be a Progressive Movement, there will not be anything we believe in in the future, because the United States will really be changed for the worse. Thats not a thats not a risk im prepared to take at this point in time. Im going to move im going to do exactly what ive been doing for the last 40 years. Im going to continue to beat my head against the wall, to build and contribute to building a Progressive Movement. The day after election day, i am going to try to work with Bernie Sanders and anybody else who wants to work in strengthening a third party and again, maybe its the green party for the year 2020, and do Everything Else i was just talking about. But right now as we lead up to election day 2016, i must urge everyone who is listening or who is watching to do whatever they can to make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president , and not donald trump. Amy former clinton labor secretary robert reich and Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist chris hedges. Well return to the debate in a minute.  [music break] amy dr. John and odetta, brother can you spare a dime. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We return now to our debate between former clinton labor secretary robert reich and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist chris hedges. Reich supported senator sanders during the primaries. Chris hedges supports dr. Jill stein of the green party for president. Juan gonzalez and i spoke to them during the Democratic National convention. Chris hedges was with us in philadelphia, robert reich joined us from the university of california berkeley where he teaches. We started this section of the debate with a clip from Donald Trumps acceptance speech at the Republican National convention. Mr. Trump i have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders. He never had a chance, never had a chance. But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest single issue trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and strip us of our wealth as a country. Juan that was donald trump talking at the convention in cleveland. Robert reich, interestingly, donald trump and chris hedges agree on one thing, that free trade deals that the that both the republicans and democrats have negotiated over the past few years, especially nafta, have been disastrous for the american people. You were part of the Clinton Administration when nafta was passed. Talk about this, the impact that trump is utilizing among white workers in america over the issue of free trade. Well, donald trump is clearly using trade and also immigration as vehicles for making the people who have really been hurt by trade, by glolization, feel that he is going to somehow be on their side. Hes not going to be on their side. Trump is right in a very, very narrow respect that trade has hurt very vulnerable people, workingclass people. The burdens of trade have been disproportionately fallen on those people who used to have good unionized jobs in america. And the failure of nafta and also the wto, the world trade organization, chinese ascension into the wto, all of those clintonera programs the failure was, number one, not to have nearly Strong Enough and enforceable enough labor and environmental side agreements. Number two, not to have adjustment mechanisms here in the United States for people who lost their jobs to help them get good jobs, that were new jobs, for the jobs they lost. The winners in trade could have compensated the losers and still come out ahead, but they did not. And that is a structural, political problem in this country that we have to address. It is also a problem with regard to technological displacement. Its not just trade. Technology is displacing and will continue to displace and will displace even more good jobs in the future, but we have absolutely no strategy for dealing with that. And right now, the burdens of technological displacement are falling, once again, on the working middle class, lowerincome people, who have very, very few alternatives, driving a greater and greater wedge between those who are lucky enough to be to have rich parents or be well educated or be well connected, and everybody else. We cannot go on like this. This is unsustainable. And donald trump and Bernie Sanders are symptomatic, their rise, are both symptomatic of this great wave of antiestablishment anger that is flooding american politics. Although on the one side you have authoritarian populism, and on the Bernie Sanders side you have a political revolution. I prefer the political revolution, myself. Im going to continue to work for that political revolution. I think we have to acknowledge two facts. We do not live in a functioning democracy, and we have to stop pretending that we do. You cant talk about when you eviscerate privacy, you cant use the word liberty. That is the relationship between a master and a slave. The fact is, this is capitalism run amok. This whole discussion should be about capitalism. Capitalism does what its designed to do, when its unfettered or unregulated as it is and that is to increase profit and reduce the cost of labor. And it has done that by deindustrializing the country, and the Clinton Administration, you know, massively enabled this. And, you know, were sitting here in philadelphia. The last convention was in cleveland. These are potemkin villages, where the downtowns are disneyfied and three and four blocks away people are living in appalling poverty. We have responded to surplus labor, as karl marx says, in our deindustrialized internal colonies, to quote malcolm x, by putting poor people of color in cages all across the country. Why . Its because surplus labor corporate entities cannot make money off of surplus or redundant labor. But when you lock them in a cage, they make 40,000 or 50,000 a year. This is the system we live in. We live in a system where, under section 1021 of the National Defense authorization act, the executive branch can put the soldiers in the streets, in clear violation of the 1878 posse comitatus act, to see carry out extraordinary rendition of american citizens who are deemed to be terrorists, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities, including in our black sites. We are a country that engages in torture. We talk robert talks about, you know, building movements. You cant build movements in a political system where money has replaced the vote. Its impossible. And the democrats, you know, their bedside manner is different from the republicans. You know, trump is this kind of grotesque figure. Hes like the used car salesman who rolls back the speedometer. But Hillary Clinton is like, you know, the managers of Goldman Sachs. They both engage in criminal activities that have and clintons record, like trump, exposes this that have preyed upon the most vulnerable within this country and are now destroying the middle class. And to somehow speak as if we are in a functioning democracy, or speak as if there are any restraints on capitalism, or speak as if the Democratic Party has not pushed forward this agenda i mean, obama has done this. You know, he has been as obsequious to wall street as the bush administration. Theres no difference. Amy robert reich . Chris, you know, i again, i find this a frustrating conversation, because i agree with so much of what you have said, but the question is, what do we do about it . I mean, we are in a better position today, in the sense that Bernie Sanders has helped mobilize, organize, and energize a lot of americans, and educated a lot of americans about the very issues that you have talked and written about and i have talked and written about. But the question is, what is the action . What is the actual political strategy right now . Well, let me let me answer that. And i think the political let me answer that. Well, let me just let me just put in my two cents. I think political strategy is not to elect donald trump, to elect Hillary Clinton, and for four years, to develop an alternative, another Bernie Sanderstype candidate with an independent party, outside the Democratic Party, that will take on Hillary Clinton, assuming that she is elected and that she runs for reelection, and that also develops the infrastructure of a third party that is a true, new progressive party. Well, thats precisely what were trying to do. There is a point where you have to do i want to keep quoting ralph, but where you have to draw a line in the sand. And thats part of the problem with the left, is we havent. I covered the war in yugoslavia, and i find many parallels between whats happening in the United States and what happened with the breakdown of yugoslavia. What is it that caused this country to disintegrate . It wasnt ancient ethnic hatreds. It was the economic meltdown of yugoslavia and a bankrupt liberal establishment that, after the death of tito until 1989 or 1990, spoke in the language of democracy, but proved ineffectual in terms of dealing with the plight of working men and women who were cast out of state factories, huge unemployment, and finally, hyperinflation. And the fact is that these neoliberal policies, which the Democratic Party is one of the engines for, have created this rightwing fascialism. You can go back this protofascism. You can go back and look at the weimar, and it republic was very much the same. So its completely counterintuitive. Of course, i find trump a vile and disturbing and disgusting figure, but i dont believe that voting for the democratic establishment and remember that this the two insurgencies, both within the Republican Party and the were against figures like Hillary Clinton, who spoke in that traditional feelyourpain language of liberalism, while assiduously serving Corporate Power and selling out working men and women. And they see through the con, they see through the game. I dont actually think Bernie Sanders educated the public. In fact, Bernie Sanders spoke for the first time as a political candidate about the reality the public was experiencing, because even barack obama, in his state of the union address, was talking about economic recovery, and everything was wonderful, and people know that its not. And when you dispossess well, let me let me let me just finish. Let me finish. When you dispossess that segment, as large as we have half the country now lives in virtual poverty and you continue to essentially run a government thats been seized by a cabal, in this case, corporate, which uses all of the machinery of government for their own enrichment and their own further empowerment at the expense of the rest of the citizenry, people finally react. And that is how you get fascism. That is what history has told us. And to sit by every time, robert, you speak, you do exactly what trump does, which is fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. And the fact that we are going to build some kind of well, let me let me try to amorphous movement afr Hillary Clinton its just not they way it works. Let me try to inject let me try to inject some hope in here, in this discussion, rather than fear. Ive been traveling around the country for the last two years, trying to talk to tea partiers and conservatives and many people who are probably going to vote for donald trump, to try to understand what it is that they are doing and how they view america and why theyre acting in ways that are so obviously against their selfinterest, both economic selfinterest and other selfinterest. And heres the interesting thing i found. This great antiestablishment wave that is occurring both on the left and the right has a great overlap, if you will, and that overlap is a deep contempt for what many people on the right are calling crony capitalism. In fact, many people on the left have called crony capitalism. And those people on the right, many, many working people, theyre not all white. Many of them are. Many of them are workingclass. Many of them have suffered from trade and technological displacement and a government that is really turning its back on them, they feel and to some extent, theyre right. Many of them feel as angry about the Current System and about corporate welfare and about big money in politics as many of us on the Progressive Side do. Now, if it is possible to have a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of the bottom 90 that is ready to fight to get big money out of politics, for more equality, for a system that is not rigged against average working people, where there are not going to be all of these redistributions upward from those of us who have paychecks and we dont even realize that larger and larger portions of those paychecks are going to big industries, conglomerates, concentrated industries that have great market power, because its all hidden fromiew well, the more Coalition Building we can do, from right to left, multiethnic, multiracial, left and right, to build a movement to take back our economy and to take back our democracy, that is juan robert reich robert reich, id just like to interrupt you for a second, because we only have a minute left, and i just wanted to ask chris one last question. In less than a minute, if you can, regardless of youre voting for jill stein, other folks are going to vote for clinton and trump. Where do you feel this Massive Movement that has developed over the last few years, this people movement, would have a better opportunity to grow, under a Trump Presidency or under a clinton presidency, assuming that one of those two will eventually be elected . I dont think it makes any difference. The tpp is going to go through, whether its donald trump or Hillary Clinton. Endless war is going to be continued, whether its trump or clinton. Were not going to get our privacy back, whether its under clinton or trump. The idea that at this point, the figure in the executive branch exercises that much power, given the power of the war industry and wall street, is a myth. The fact is equating im sorry. Juan even on immigration . What . On immigration . I mean, lets look at obamas record on immigration. Whos worse . Amy weve got 10 seconds. I mean, you know, you cant get worse than obama. And can i just Say Something . Amy robert reich, 10 seconds. I just want to say, equating donald trump and Hillary Clinton is absolute nonsense. I just anybody who equates the two of them is not paying attention. And its dangerous kind of talk. Thats not what i thats not what i did. Amy were going to have to leave it there, but this is a discussion that will continue. That was chris hedges, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist. His most recent book, wages of rebellion the moral imperative of revolt. Robert reich served as labor secretary under president clinton, is a professor at university of california, berkeley. His most recent book, saving capitalism for the many, not the few. When we come back, the making of donald trump with David Cay Johnston.  [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we continue this holiday special with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston who has been reporting on donald trump for decades. Johnston first covered trump in the 1980s while he was working as bureau chief for the Philadelphia Inquirer in Atlantic City. David cay johnston later covered trump at the new york times. Johnstons new biography of donald trump has just been published. It is called, the making of donald trump. Juan gonzalez and i interviewed David Cay Johnston last month. We began by asking him whats the main theme he has taken away from his years of studying trumps operations. Donald doesnt know anything. And if you listen carefully to what he says, it becomes apparent. He was asked by a hugh hewitt during one of the debates, the rightwing radio talk show host, about the nuclear triad. Thats the capacity of the u. S. To deliver a nuclear bomb from a submarine missile, a landbased missile, or an airplane. His answer indicated he had no idea. Well, it turned out hugh hewitt had asked the same question months earlier on his radio show, and trump didnt learn in between. Trump talks as if the president s a dictator. Wh he ran casinos, he didnt know the games. He did not know the odds. He didnt know how to handle customers. All he knew how to do was take money out of the organization, which weakened it, and thats why his casinos were among the first to fold. Amy lets go back to the clip that you reference also in the making of donald trump. During the Republican Debate last december, he was questioned, as you said, by hugh hewitt, who then asked senator marco rubio for his response. Mr. Trump first of all, i think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, whos totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important. And one of the things that i most frankly proud of is that in 2003, 2004, i was totally against going into iraq, because youre going to destabilize the middle east. I called it. I called it very strongly, and it was very important. But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. The three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority . Because i want to go to senator rubio after that and ask him mr. Trump well, i think i think, to me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me. Senator rubio, do you have a response . Sen. Rubio i do. At home who the triad what the triad is. Maybe a lot of people havent heard that terminology before. The triad is our ability of the United States to conduct Nuclear Attacks using airplanes, using missiles launched from silos or from the ground, and also from our nuclear subs, ability to attack. And its important. All three of them are critical. Amy so that was senator rubio and, before him, donald trump. And then recently, joe scarborough, the talk show host whos a former republican conservative congressmember, saying he heard from an International Diplomat who was advising Donald Trump Trump said to the person three times, if we have nuclear weapons, why dont we use them . Well, this is indicative of donald doesnt know anything. I mean, if marco rubio, who is pretty much an empty suit, has to school you on something this basic, that should have screamed to people back in december, this man has no qualifications he doesnt qualify to be in congress, much less be president of the United States. On the other hand, in his own mind, of course, donald is the greatest living person. And, amy, if you dont appreciate that, donald has a word for you, loser juan david, i wanted to ask you about this issue which we discussed previously with Wayne Barrett, as well, on the issue of Donald Trumps relationship to the mob and his connections over the years to mobsters. And youve also looked into that as well. Yes, and its not just the traditional mafia families in new york. First of all, Donald Trumps father had a Business Partner who was a mob guy. Im sure wayne talked about that. But donald has done business with people with the russian mob. Hes done business with con artists. The guy who supplied his helicopters and managed his personal helicopter, called the ivana, from his first wife back then, was a major cocaine trafficker who actually handled the drugs. And after he went to prison, donald wrote a letter pleading for mercy for him, so he got 18 months as the head of the ring. The little fish who delivered the drugs, they got 20 years. Donald continued to do business with him after he was indicted. Donald has done business all his life with mobsters and criminals because its a way to make money. Amy can you talk about Joseph Weichselbaum . Yes, thats the guy. Joseph weichselbaum is this mob associate. He once he used to do cigarette boat racing in miami, and he once was came in third, right behind charles keating, the infamous financier who ripped off people for a billion dollars. And weichselbaum provided helicopters to the trump organization, even though there were bettercapitalized, betterrun companies. Donald rented an apartment to weichselbaum and his brother under very unusual circumstances. When weichselbaum was indicted, it was for a drug operation that went from miami to ohio. When he agreed to plead guilty, the case was mysteriously moved to new jersey. And who did it come before . Federal judge maryanne trump barry, donalds older sister. No one knows how this happened. Now, she removed herself from the case. But imagine, amy, that you, or one of the listeners, youre the chief judge, and the judge comes to you and says, oh, i cant handle this case, because i fly in this drug traffickers helicopters. My husband flies in them every week. My children have flown in this drug traffickers helicopters. You know, it helps explain how this guy got a light sentence. And the question we have to ask is, why did donald trump need to write that letter, which could have cost him his casino license . Because he needed this guy to be his friend and not his enemy. What was going on that donald trump needed a drug trafficker to be his friend and not his enemy . And thats a question no one in the news media has been asking. Amy you got a call from donald trump over this . I got a call related to this, yes. I wrote a piece for Politico Magazine back in april about all of Donald Trumps connections. And donald finally called me. Hes had my home number for years. Hes called me at home in the past. And he said to me, well, you know, youve written a lot of things i like. But if i dont like what youre writing, im going to sue you. I said, well, donald, youre a public figure. In america, that means that he would have to prove that i deliberately, knowingly told a lie about him. And he said, i know im a public figure, but ill sue you anyway. And its one of the reasons the News Coverage of him has been so soft. He has threatened to sue everybody. That politico piece that i wrote, ive been an Investigative Reporter for almost 50 years. Ive never been lawyered like i was for that piece. And it didnt have anything that hadnt been published before. He has intimidated the news organizations, and theyre not willing to talk about that. Juan well, in your book, you go into a story, not about his father, whos been well known and covered previously by other publications, but about his grandfather. Talk about Donald Trumps grandfather. Donald trumps grandfather, frederick, when he turned 16 in 1885, was subject to mandatory military service in germany, so he fled the country and came to america. And then he followed Horace Greeleys advice, go west, young man. And he went into the whorehouse business. And he ran bordellos in seattle, in everett, washington, and in the Yukon Territory until the Royal Canadian mounted Police Showed up. He then took his fortune, went back to germany, married a young woman his mother didnt approve of, came back to america. His wife didnt like it. They went back to germany. He figured with all his money, he could buy his way in. And they said, youre a draft dodger. Get out, and sent him back to america. Amy and then, talk about his father, fred trump. Well, fred trump, whose father died when he was 12 or 13 years old, was a very industrious guy. When he was 15 years old, he started a business technically owned by his mother, because he couldnt sign contracts building garages in the outer boroughs of new york for these newfangled thing called automobiles. When the market collapsed because of the great depression, he invented one of the First Grocery stores. People used to have clerks give them their canned goods and stuff. He opened one where you did your own, and then sold it for a profit. He built housing during world war ii for Shipyard Workers and is said to be the first person in line to get federal money to build worker housing. He was a profiteer. Dwight d. Eisenhower personally went into a rage over what he had done, how hed ripped stuff off, and he had a creative explanation when he was called before the u. S. Senate to justify what he did. He said, i didnt profiteer. I didnt take the money. Its in the bank account. Strange way to think about things. And, of course, they discriminated against everybody who wasnt white, and were proven to have done this in the 1950s and in the 1970s. And woody guthrie, the folk singer, this land is your land, he wrote a song, which is in the book thanks to the generosity of the guthrie family, about one of the allwhite outer suburb projects owned by fred trump. Amy that he had an apartment in. Yes, thats right, that he lived in. Amy you tell a story about fred trumps son, his older son, Donald Trumps brother, and what happened to his family, and particularly his grandchild right. Amy after the father, fred trump, died, and what donald trump did to him. So keep in mind he sought mercy for a drug trafficker. So freddy trump, jr. , died of alcoholism early. And when old man trump died, he had a new grandson a greatgrandson, who was born a few days later very sickly child, nearly died several times, huge medical bills. Everyone in the trump family gets medical insurance from the trump organization. Donald is a big believer in healthcare. Its one of the positive things you can say about him. And the line of freddy trump, jr. , when they realized theyd been effectively cut out of the will, filed a lawsuit. Hey, you know, you guys are dividing the money up four ways instead of five. Donald immediately cut off the healthcare for this sickly child. Amy this is his grandnephew. His grandnephew. And hes asked about this. And he says, well, i dont like people who sue my father. And he was told, well, dont you think this will look coldhearted . Youre putting the life of this child in jeopardy. Well, what else am i to do . And thats an essential element to understanding donald trump. You dont exist, amy, i dont exist, as a person. Thats why he talks about women the way he does in these degrading terms. Donald doesnt see other people as people. He sees them as things to be used. And put the life of a child in jeopardy for more money . Donald thinks nothing is wrong with that. Of course you would do that, if youre donald. If you wouldnt do it, whats wrong with you . That would be donalds attitude. Juan and the issue of Donald Trumps tax forms, thats this has continually come up over this campaign. Why havent you released your tax returns . Youve looked into this whole issue of why hes so reluctant to show what his real returns are. Right, and tax has been my big area of specialty. Im actually writing a whole new federal tax code for the United States. Juan in your spare time. Yeah. Donald trump, we know, paid no federal income taxes in 1978, 1979 he and i had lunch and talked about it once in 1984 and in the 1990s. The 1984 tax return is very revealing. There are special laws in america for fulltime real estate people that allow them to live taxfree if they own a lot of property. So if donald gave us his tax returns, i could tell you what his property is really worth as opposed to what he tells people its worth. Thats one reason hes not going to give it out. I dont think hes anywhere near as wealthy as he claims. Not even close. But in 1984, he was audited by the state of new york and the city of new york, which both have income taxes. He filed a tax form, not the whole return, that showed zero income for this category of income and over 600,000 of deductions. Surprise, surprise, the auditors said, please justify these deductions. He couldnt do it. But he ordered his law guy his tax guy to make an appeal. And under oath, his longtime tax guy is shown the return that was filed, and he goes, um, thats my signature, but i didnt prepare that document. Thats very good evidence of tax fraud. And donald has engaged in other tax frauds we know about. He was involved in whats called the empty box scandal here in new york. Thats where you claim to not live in the city in the state, and you have an empty box mailed to you out of state to avoid sales tax. In that case, when donald found out there was an investigation, he did what he often does to not be investigated he ran to Law Enforcement and ratted out other people. Juan but in the 1984 case, if there was evidence of fraud, what happened with that case . We only know what happened in the city and the state case, all right . The state imposed penalties on him, civil penalties, not criminal. Thats how almost all tax matters are settled. The city, because no one could find the original all they had was the photocopy with the signature on it, the judge didnt impose the penalties, because of the uncertainty about it. But he made it very clear that he thought this is a very fishy case. What the irs did, i dont know. In allikelihood, donald, who says hes audited all the time, arranges to settle these cases, but through threats of litigation, when they do the legal algebra, they say, all right, well take pennies on the dollar. Get out of here, because they dont have the staff to pursue it. Amy you write a lot about the dge. Thats the new Jersey Division of gaming enforcement, which oversees the Atlantic City casinos. What can we learn from their dealings with donald trump . Well, this shows how masterful donald trump is at manipulating Law Enforcement. He told the attorney general of new jersey, when he wanted a casino license, im not going to go through the 18 months that all these other people have gone through, and demanded he be investigated in just 90 days. Everybody else, year and a half. The attorney general agreed to six months if donald cooperated. Then donald hid things, including four grand jury investigations that Wayne Barrett found. Four of them. In new jersey, a woman applying for a blackjack dealer license thats a very lowlevel license was found morally unfit and denied a license because as a teenager she gave friends of hers discounts at the cash register. Thats the legal standard. Donald withheld these grand jury investigations. He withheld associations with mobsters and criminals. And yet he got licensed anyway. Well, once he was licensed, the bureaucracy at the division of gaming enforcement made sure that donald was never asked a question that would put his license in jeopardy because that would force them to admit that they hadnt done their job. Juan well, given this history of lying, of fraud, of all of these other skirtings of the law, have you been surprised at all about this the enormous support that trump has gotten among no. Juan the republican faithful . Juan, ill tell you why im not surprised. As you two know, ive spent more than 20 years of my life being on the forefront in the Mainstream Press of documenting inequality. When nobody else was writing about it, i was showing how Government Policies are taking from the many and giving to the few. So the people in this Country Living in economic terror, the bottom 50 , ive been their advocate. But theyre not the people who read my books. What they know is, im working harder, im making less. If i lose my job, i dont know how ill pay my rent or keep a roof over my kids heads. And donald comes along, like all demagogues do i have a solution. Its the mexicans. Its the muslims. Its the chinese. And people gravitate to him. They are not the only ones, but thats a big part of his support. Amy you write about how many of his restaurants, his golf courses have five and six diamond awards. What are these . Well, you go to at least 19 Trump Properties have these big plaques. Six diamond award, five diamond awards. Theyre awards donald gave to himself. Donald and his family were the majority of the board of something called the academy of American Hospitality sciences, or Something Like that, which is the invention of a mob guy, a named joey no socks, who lives on central park south. And donald has gone to ceremonies to receive these awards and these big plaques, and his signature is on them. This is a man who gives awards to himself. How juvenile. Amy what were you most surprised by, as we wrap up this interview, in writing the making of donald trump . You have covered him for many years. I did not appreciate, until i worked on the book, that while donald holds himself out as a devout christian no one reads the bible more than me. While he has all these pastors embracing him as a good christian man, donald aggressively, thoroughly and at great length in many forums, denounces christianity. His personal motto is always get revenge. Whereas the message of jesus christ was turn the other cheek. And these ministers, some of whom ive written to and havent they havent responded at all continue to embrace him. And i find it very troubling. Donald has beguiled them with flattery. If they continue, now that my book is out, if they know about it, to do this, they are then deceiving their flocks, and thats evil. But donald himself doesnt care about these things. He will tell you any lie. He cant quote a single line from the bible. Not one. And yet he says, no one reads the bible more than donald trump. If you ask him, well, what do you like in the bible . Oh, theres so many. Theres so many. I just there are so many, i cant choose. Amy Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston, author of the new book the making of donald trump. We end this labor day special with billy bragg singing in our democracy now studio.  there is power in a factory, power in the lands power in the hand of the worker but it all amounts to nothing if together we dont stand there is power in a union now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers blood the mistakes of the bosses we must pay for from the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud war has always been the bosses way, sir the Union Forever defending our rights down with the blackleg, all workers unite with our brothers and our sisters together we will stand there is power in a union now i long for the morning that they realize brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us who will defend the workers who cannot organize when the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us . Money speaks for money, the devil for his own who comes to speak for the skin and the bone what a comfort to the widow, a light to the child there is power in a union the Union Forever defending our rights down with the blackleg, all workers unite with our brothers and our sisters together we will stand there is power in a union.  amy and that does it for todays show. If you would like to get a copy or see the show or the transcript, podcast or audio of the show or any of our debates are coverage of the 2016 election or anything else on global politics, go to democracynow. Org. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. Today on americas test kitchen, julia uncovers the secrets to making foolproof new york cheesecake. And bridget shows how to make the best new york bagels at home. Right here on americas test kitchen. Americas test kitchen is brought to you by dcs. Dcs manufacturers of professionally styled indoor and outdoor kitchen equipment. At dcs, our mission is design that delivers,